


blood echoes

by temporalDecay



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blood Magic, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Past Lives, Reincarnation, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Tragedy, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 09:20:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11964444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalDecay/pseuds/temporalDecay
Summary: An old curse upon House Pavus. Two souls entwined with blood magic, destined to find one another, destined - it seems - to end in tragedy. Dorian and Bull feel the connection, from the beginning, but when they discover the truth of their bond, they struggle to figure out what to do about it.





	blood echoes

**Author's Note:**

> I present my humble offering for this year's Adoribull minibang.
> 
> With infinite thanks to [Jessie](http://twfdafa.tumblr.com) and [Scylla](http://scyllastew.tumblr.com), for making amazing art to go with this little mad mess I came up with.
> 
> And with special thanks to Jared, without whom this entire thing would not exist in the first place, and Vesta, for going through my horrible unedited mess and making sense of it.

* * *

_blood echoes_

* * *

_(Artwork by Jessie)_

* * *

 

It began with a question.

“We have a Ben-Hassrath with us?” Dorian asked, voice airy as he followed along the Inquisitor down the path towards Redcliffe. “A spy. An actual Qunari spy. That doesn't strike _anyone_ as a bad thing?”

It was not met with an immediate answer. For one, the Herald was focused on the task ahead, his eyes full of that desperate concern that had given Dorian pause, the first time he'd noticed it. Maxwell Trevelyan was a pious, righteous man, and though Dorian had come to the South for personal reasons, upon meeting him the first time, he’d decided he would stay after Alexius was dealt with. If the Inquisitor would have him, of course. Dorian had never been religious, even for Tevinter standards, where devotion to the Chant was just another facet of political intrigue. But he’d seen something, in the way Maxwell treated people around him, a dazzling kindness that made him realize that if the Maker had truly chosen a champion, it couldn’t possibly be any other than Maxwell.

For another, everyone else in their small caravan was mulling over the dangers they were to face, once they reached the castle and faced the Evil Magister within. Dorian didn’t really blame them, even if they truly had no idea what they were about to face. Alexius was a brilliant, powerful man, and Dorian had chosen to follow him precisely because he had had everything required to be just another monstrous tyrant in Minrathous, and instead had very consciously chosen to be a decent man. Dorian had given the Inquisition everything he could on his former master, but he doubted they truly understood what a formidable opponent he would be.

They did, after all, judge all threats against Maxwell, and the Herald of Andraste was by no means an easy mark to make.

“Says the Vint,” replied the Iron Bull, the Ben-Hassrath in question, “when we're fighting Vints.”

Dorian looked sideways at the horned giant that leered at him entirely too easily for his tastes, and sighed.

“That's... not a terrible point, actually.”

Dorian swallowed back his feelings - untamed, beastly things they were - and pushed forward, determined to ignore the ugly, twisted feeling in his gut as he steered himself to do what was needed. He found himself following Maxwell’s lead and studiously ignoring the Iron Bull’s taunting refusal to give in to his hatred.

For he had to hate Dorian, after all. Dorian was a Tevinter mage - not a Magister, but close enough, clearly - and the Iron Bull was Qunari. And he made no secret of his disdain for magic, either, but somehow his little quips about it never quite felt like personal barbs at Dorian’s expense, and he resented that, because they should be.

The Iron Bull of the future that Would Never Be (at least, not if Dorian had anything to say about it) was far more disagreeable, as it turned out. Dorian tried not to take it personally, considering the glow of red lyrium just beneath his skin, and the fact he had lived on a world without hope for a year. But in the aftermath of that particular mess, he remembered the sharpness of his tongue, the feral anger boiling in his eye, and most of all, he remembered the twinge of something lost forever, when he fell.

Dorian remembered the Qunari trapped in that shard of broken time, quite literally a nightmare in itself, but at least, he told himself, those memories were his own for a change.

“I expected you to bask in it,” the Iron Bull told him, one night on the road back to Haven, with the host of rebel mages trailing after them. “You know, being the center of attention. Haven't got any pithy quips about what the future's got store for us?”

Dorian looked up at him, and squinted just enough his vision blurred and he could see the ghost of red to him. Then he sighed dramatically and offered an encompassing shrug.

“The future,” he said, and forced himself to believe every word as he spoke, “is what we make of it, nothing more.” The Iron Bull stared at him, clearly not expecting that reply, but then the moment passed and Dorian allowed it to go by without comment as he shrugged. “Besides, everyone knows I already am the center of attention. What could possibly take attention away from me?”

The Iron Bull laughed, full and loud, and something inside Dorian twinged. It was the same something that echoed when his mind was not his own, however, so he ignored it. He ignored the fact he rather liked the big brute, for all he was not a brute at all, but that was just part and parcel of Dorian being himself.

* * *

_“Surely, your people must understand by now the futility of this war.”_

_The man sits by the windowsill, tempting fate just by existing._ Oh _, Dorian thinks, and commands his body to move and leave the room, as he knows exactly what follows next._

 _“It_ has _been centuries, after all,” the man goes on, a small, taunting smile pulling at his lips. “Your kind_ does _know how to count that high a number, doesn’t it?”_

_Dorian’s body remains where it is, as his throat grunts back something rude. Dorian doesn’t understand the words, but he feels the echo of disdain behind them._

Please _, he thinks, mentally digging his fingers into sand,_ please, let’s go _._

_He stays where he is. He stays and watches as the man is pierced through with a bolt and he unravels into rage by unleashing magic that makes his skin crawl with terror._

_“You’re hurt,” Dorian’s throat forces the words through Dorian’s mouth, even as Dorian wishes he could whimper and dream normal dreams, the kind that have demons in them, trying to steal away his soul._

_“I’m just pissed, actually,” the man replies, holding his side and smiling winningly at the carnage all around him. He reaches out a blooded hand to tilt Dorian’s face up slightly, and that’s when Dorian remembers he’s chained and bound, even as his skin breaks out in goosebumps._ Fear _, Dorian reminds himself,_ it’s only fear _. His gut whispers otherwise. “The concern is touching, nonetheless.”_

_“I’m sure it is,” Dorian whispers, baring his teeth warningly, but not actually biting off the thumb resting innocently on his chin. “Am I to die now?”_

_Dorian knows he’s not. He knows how this goes, he’s seen it a thousand times before._

_“Perhaps when our conversation is finished,” the man replies instead, and deep in his soul, Dorian_ seethes _._

* * *

It began with a thought.

Dorian did not join the chorus of singing believers prostrating themselves at the Inquisitor's feet, after the disaster in Heaven. The Iron Bull noticed, because he was the only other person present who didn't. But whereas the Iron Bull was certain why he did not join in on the spontaneous concert – for one, because he didn't know the lyrics, and for another, because he was Qunari, for all it seemed everyone around him endeavored to forget it – he took notice of Dorian and the little twitch of his lips, as if they wanted to sing along, but were not allowed to.

It was a small thing, truly unremarkable in the large scale of things, but it made the Iron Bull think about it and Dorian, far more than he'd have otherwise done. It made him realize, as the days turned into weeks, the paper-thin quality of most of Dorian's words, a sense of someone playing a part they felt ill-suited for, but that they did not have a choice to refuse.

It reminded the Iron Bull of himself, was the problem; back in Seheron, back when his dreams and his memories were solely his own, and how he forced himself to submit to the re-educators, lest he lost his soul in the process. That he'd lost it anyway was immaterial. He never told anyone about the dreams, the memories, any of it. They never noticed on their own, and a tiny, screaming part of him decided that if they couldn't see it, if they couldn't figure it out, he wasn't going to tell them anything. When they'd offered to send him away from Seheron, he'd accepted not because he was afraid to lose himself in the war, but because he was certain he already had, and not one of his fellow Qunari took note of it.

Now here he was, tasked to save the whole world, apparently, watching people fall deeper into faith of the Inquisitor, and though he knew it was all nonsense, there was that shrieking bit of his soul that kind of wanted to join in, anyway. He wondered if that faith was like the faith his people had in the Qun, the kind of powerful certainty that made the world a good deal less scary than it could be.

The sort of thing he'd never had.

The Iron Bull thought back, as far back as he could, and he couldn’t think of any memory that wasn't marred by that nagging whisper, nothing that wasn't tainted by that oppressive sense of doubt. The Ben-Hassrath told him doubt was good, that it fostered questions and made him valuable. That his doubt would only lead him to a stronger faith, because his understanding of the Qun would be tempered by it. He had never really felt it, but he had also never really been punished for it. He just stood there, just barely inside the circle, a not quite outsider looking in, feeling the pull deep in his soul to go elsewhere.

And then there was Seheron, and that one fight, blood magic gone wrong, and the outpour of nightmares and memories he didn't quite understand, and that no one could make better. The re-educators told him it would pass. The Ben-Hassrath told him it didn't matter. The Qun reminded him all struggle was an illusion.

“I still like our song better,” Krem told him, coming to sit by his side with a wry grin. “But I don't think anyone will appreciate the sentiment at the moment.”

The Iron Bull spied Dorian turning back to his book, taking solace in his distance from the rest of them.

“Dunno,” he replied, “maybe you and the Vint can do a Tevinter rendition for the second act.”

Krem didn't immediately laugh, and it made the Iron Bull's thoughts crash into each other, because of course Krem wouldn't laugh. Krem saw through him, stared in the face of whatever it was that was wrong with him, and diagnosed him with pinpoint precision like no one else could.

“You're an idiot,” Krem said eventually, seemingly after reaching his conclusion.

The Iron Bull considered asking, but then Krem tended to know him better than he knew himself, and he made it a habit not to spoil his own stupidity just because Krem saw it coming before he did.

It made life interesting, if nothing else.

* * *

Don’t let him go _, the Iron Bull tells himself, in a stern, commanding voice that goes completely unheard._ He’s Ben-Hassrath. He will kill you _._

_The Iron Bull waves a hand over the bound Qunari, expression magnanimous as the power courses freely through his fingers and his bonds melt like water off his person._

_“There,” the Iron Bull says, voice airy and taunting, as he leans back against the wall. “That should do it.”_

Fool _, the Iron Bull thinks viciously, a steady whisper of disdain:_ fool, fool, fool _. He knows the Ben-Hassrath will not actually kill him, not with his own hands at least. But he also knows how this ends. It ends in pain and misery and death, and it would be avoided if only the Iron Bull’s body obeyed him and did as he knew better._

_“I dearly hope you don’t expect me to actually stick around,” the Ben-Hassrath replies, slowly unfolding his body as he looms over the Iron Bull, all seven feet of scarred, capable warrior that the Iron Bull is not terrified of, for some reason._

_The reason is magic, he supposes, poisoning his senses with overconfidence, tingling at his fingertips and promising the impossible. The Iron Bull has never once doubted the wisdom of the Qun behind the binding of mages, not after seeing first hand the destruction they create and dreaming through the horror of lives destroyed by its hubris._

_“If you want to go out and brave_ that _,” the Iron Bull says, in a smug, sneering tone as he points at the window and the storm raging outside it, “by all means, be my guest. If you actually survive it, I shan’t even be mad that you escaped me. But since you seem a tad more reasonable than that, and since I frankly refuse to baby you like a small child, perhaps we could instead cooperate. I expect neither of us came here to die, specifically, though perhaps in theory. It is a war, after all. If you absolutely must die, do let me know, I’ll oblige.”_

_The Ben-Hassrath - the Iron Bull recognizes the ghost of training in him, the posture and stance and the shiftiness of his eyes, but the Iron Bull in the dream has none of that training and refuses to yield to the Iron Bull’s expertise on the subject - tilts his head to the side ever so slightly, consciously considering his options and making sure the Iron Bull knows it._

_“Truce,” he says eventually, with the same distaste for the word that ten years in Seheron bred in the Iron Bull. “I suppose.”_

_“Marvelous,” the Iron Bull replies, because he’s a fool doomed to tragedy, for all he doesn’t know it._

_The Iron Bull understands, at the very least, the futility of fighting this, and he’s grown tired of fighting it, over the years. He’s analyzed every scenario and found the breaking point, the only place where he focuses his efforts every time it comes to pass. But when they prove to be useless - as they always do - he forces himself to spectate the whole disastrous mess from then on, refusing to give in to the temptation to demand a different outcome._

_He knows how it ends. But knowing, and living through it, are not quite the same thing._

_Despite his best intentions, deep in his soul, the Iron Bull_ cringes _._

* * *

It started with a nightmare.

They were not _all_ nightmares, strictly speaking, but Dorian considered them as such, because even when nothing terribly nightmarish was happening, he still felt like he was reliving someone else's memories. He was deprived of control, will and voice, and few things were as terrifying as watching himself go through the motions of things he most emphatically did not choose to do.

Dorian had learned to sleep short and lightly, after his father's betrayal. After the pull of blood magic tore open something inside him, spilling out ghosts of things unnamed that refused to leave. He pretended they were gone, while he was awake, but he still heard them, distantly, whenever his mind wandered and stumbled unconsciously onto the pile of memories not his own.

Dorian took night guard duty whenever he could, and appreciated the fact no one really bothered to ask him why.

Well, almost no one.

“Copper for your thoughts, big guy?” The Iron Bull asked him, coming to sit by the fire with an easy smile.

Dorian looked up at the Qunari with the customary suspicious look that by that point both knew was more for show than anything else, and shrugged. It was hard to stay suspicious of someone who'd fought waves of undead and demons with you, after all, and deep in a secret corner of his soul, Dorian found himself amused by the flirting. Flattered, almost.

“Make it a gold piece and I might consider it,” he replied, reaching a hand towards the dimming embers in the fire pit and bringing it back to life with a casual flick of his wrist. He did not miss the way the Iron Bull's eye narrowed at the casual show of magic, but he refused to admit he'd done it purely to invoke that reaction. That would be admitting childishness, and also ruin the game.

“Could give you something else if you want,” the Iron Bull said, right on cue, eyebrow twitching up and down in a mockery of suggestiveness that made Dorian want to smile despite his best intentions.

“I very much don't want,” he said, as he was meant to. “No conquering for you, I'm afraid.”

The Iron Bull snorted, shaking his head.

“You're never going to let that one go, are you?” He asked, trying to keep his voice light and carefree, even if he was still somewhat annoyed by the misstep.

He never missed a step. He was used to figuring out people five minutes in their presence, but the fact the Vint was alien and familiar all at once, that he invited and rejected in turns, it drove him a little crazy sometimes. He didn't know what made the Vint tick, what was hiding behind the mask of easy charisma and cutting wit. But he was drawn to him, in ways he wasn't drawn to anyone else, and the fact Krem kept smirking at him whenever the subject came up didn't help make him feel any better about it.

“The only reason you're still here, breathing and whole, as opposed to a pile of ash somewhere in the Hinterlands,” Dorian said, with a smile that made promises his eyes did not intend to keep, “is because you made Blackwall walk into a tree with that little quip. So no, I don't think I'll ever let it go.”

“Fair enough,” the Iron Bull said, chuckling low in his throat, and Dorian wished above all things, that he'd never really noticed the shades of laughter the Qunari commanded and all the tiny things they said, because then he could comfortably hold onto his pretense of not wanting anything at all. “It's the thing about offers, you know, you make them, but it's up to the other person to take them.”

“Or not,” Dorian insisted, chin tilted up high. “Don't feel bad about it, I've always been good at temptation.”

“Being or resisting?” The Iron Bull asked, sharp enough to make Dorian laugh.

“Both.” Dorian's smile faded by degrees, expression made severe by the light of the fire and the contrasting darkness of the bog all around them. “You should be sleeping.” And then, a little forced: “Don't trust the Vint to keep watch on his own?”

“You've been keeping watch for a while now,” the Iron Bull pointed out, choosing not to answer the question in such a sharp way. Dorian didn't comment on it. “I figured you'd be tired.”

“I'm not,” Dorian replied, quickly. A bit too quickly. He was used to it, not really sleeping. He was fond of napping to make up for it.

“It's creepy out here,” the Iron Bull said instead, rather than following the thread of Dorian's misstep. “Quiet. Nightmares come easy.”

It was a careful admission and Dorian took it for an attempt at bonding, a calculated risk. He'd come to realize the Iron Bull was anything but a brute, for all he enjoyed playing up the part from time to time. But they had dispensed with the flirting and the perfunctory barbs, and now it was time for Dorian to rebuke him and send him away.

He looked over the desolate marsh all around them, imagined the hundreds of bodies lying peacefully beneath the surface of the water, ready to spring up into action in an instant. He thought of the Inquisitor, stubborn as only someone committed to fanatical fervor could be.

He thought of his father, grim and determined and so very sad.

“I'm not,” he began, closing his eyes as he sighed, “averse to company.”

“Even mine?” The Iron Bull teased, eye glinting as the light played with the sharp corners of his face.

“Even yours,” Dorian admitted with a shrug, and deigned to sit closer to him.

Together, they waited for dawn to break.

* * *

_It’d be easier, Dorian reckons, to master the dreams if he had the whole picture. But he doesn’t. He has the beginning in crisp, clear memories, full of color and nuance and a million little details to properly drive him insane, trying to figure out if it is real or not. His gut feeling is yes, on that matter, but nothing he’s ever studied could verify it. But as the nightmare goes on, each night a self-contained chapter of a miserable story not even Varric could sell, the details waver, the colors become muted and the emotions much less layered but no less potent. He used to wake up after a night of half remembered sex with lust and need drilling itself to the bone between his legs, but he’s learned to master himself by now. Mostly._

_It’s not like he can enjoy the sex, anyway, disjointed and desperate and visceral as it is._

_He knows how it ends._

_The ending of the cycle draws near, looming above him almost like a physical thing, and he’s certain it’s that knowledge that makes his entire being flinch as he feels himself turn back._

Don’t go back _, he tells himself, certain whatever is behind that door would be just as terrible, but at least it wouldn’t be what’s waiting for him back there._ Don’t go _._

_Dorian goes, docile and tired and full of regret. He goes looking for the vicious, terrible mouth that spun all his secrets out of him. He searches for the hands that tried to put him together, even as they tenderly ripped him to pieces. He seeks the gleaming eyes that could predict his lies before he even realizes they were._

_Dorian goes and finds the mouth silent, the hands listless and the eyes glazed._

_Dorian feels the bubble of rage burst in his gut and holds onto his own sanity as his dream spirals into screaming and rage and a grief so profound he only ever glimpses at a ghost of it, when he receives news of Felix’s death._

_He knows how it ends, in pain and sadness and despair. But, worst of all, he knows how it begins, anew._

* * *

It began with a wound.

“It looks worse than it feels,” the Iron Bull said, patting his side and ignoring the fact his hand came out coated in blood for his efforts. “Really.”

“It was a stupid thing to do,” Dorian pointed out, “regardless.”

“You could just say thank you,” the Iron Bull teased, but sobered up slightly when Dorian's expression didn't shift to the expected annoyance. “Hey. I'm a big guy. I'm made to take that kind of heat. It's nothing.”

“I am aware,” Dorian snapped back, irritated in that shapeless, nameless way he refused to acknowledge properly. “Forgive me, I am usually less ungrateful than this.”

It wasn't exactly truthful, but he couldn't quite bring himself to explain the bizarre vision that assaulted his senses, the moment he touched the Iron Bull's blood. It glowed beneath his hands, seeping into his skin. It brought with it countless memories that expanded the ocean of Not Him inside his mind, and his only consolation at the moment was that the Qunari didn't seem to have noticed, so he would not be asked to explain it. He wasn't quite sure he could.

“It's okay,” the Iron Bull said, even though it clearly wasn't, “you watch my back, I watch yours. Sometimes I take a beating, sometimes you do, right?”

“Careful, the Iron Bull,” Dorian replied, truly grateful for the easy segue back into their vitriolic camaraderie, “that sounds almost like you trust the Vint to not stab you in the back.”

The Qunari laughed.

“Well, if you're into that...”

Dorian wasn't, but he smiled back anyway.

* * *

_“If you’re looking for trouble,” the Tal-Vashoth says, one eyebrow arched and hands deceptively resting on the wooden counter of the store, “you’re not going to find it here.”_

This isn’t right _, the Iron Bull thinks, with a stark clarity that terrifies him,_ this _isn’t_ how it goes.

_The cycles are immutable: crisp and clear beginnings, snippets of realizations not his own and then unraveling strands of endings shrouded in despair. Four cycles, altogether, that change order but not consistency. Beginning, middle, end. All full of a choking anxiety for their own reasons - he knows how they end, they all end in tears - but there’s also a certain… predictability to it. It adds to the helplessness in his bones, the infuriating knowledge that nothing he does will change this: no meditations on the Qun, no amount of drugs diluted in his food and his drink, no conscious effort to become master of himself. He left Seheron with the knowledge of this truth: whatever it is that consumes his mind at night, that sweet drip of poison slowly wearing down a well in his soul, there is nothing to be done about it, it will remain as it is, forever._

_Except, it turns out, not quite._

_“I was looking for mutton, actually,” the Iron Bull replies, one eyebrow arched and an indolent shrug hanging off his shoulders with ease. “Bit of a fan, you see.”_

This isn’t how it goes _, the Iron Bull thinks, and now fear has given way to anger, a sort of betrayal that burns his lungs and makes him want to tear the world apart with his bare hands._

_Yesterday, the Iron Bull taunted the Arvaarad with made up stories about a city wrapped up in chains that the Iron Bull had eventually figured was supposed to be Kirkwall. Today, the Iron Bull was meant to choke on his own blood and feel the slow, inexorable pain of death squeezing life out of his bones, like foam stolen from the sea._

_Today, the Iron Bull leans on a counter and taunts the Tal-Vashoth - he’s not a Tal-Vashoth, it wouldn’t end in blood, if he were, but he’s not and it does, and of course it does, that’s how it always ends - with riddles and bad jokes._

_“You look like you’d pay lamb prices for mutton,” the Tal-Vashoth says, smiling back, guarded and insincere._

_The Iron Bull misses his cue, his breaking moment to scream at himself to not smile back, to turn away and stop the flow of misery coming inexorably his way, because he’s too angry and shocked to realize the script has been changed, somehow._

_The Iron Bull smiles brightly, almost sincerely._

_“Do I?” He says, damning himself to another gut-wrenching round of despair, “why don’t you try and see what happens?”_

* * *

It started with a kiss.

Dorian was different, after Redcliffe and meeting his father. Sharper, brighter. The Inquisitor despaired at being played by someone he trusted and being used in an attempt to hurt someone he considered a friend. Dorian waved off his concern, but something changed, fundamentally, after his father confessed his reasons for attempting the blood ritual that had near sundered his soul and condemned him to a lifetime of horrors in his dreams.

_The Pavus Heir is bound to love the forbidden, and bring ruin to his House for it._

It was not the fact knowledge of the curse had been denied to him, until that moment. It was not even the fact his father had used that knowledge to justify what he’d done. It wasn’t even that Dorian was forced to admit he could see the sense in it, however twisted and revolting the thought was.

It was the carelessness with which his father threw his motives back at him, the hidden callousness behind his words, as if he expected Dorian to drop everything and submit to him, because he had a reason. He had not apologized for what he’d done - the stench of blood and the tendrils of his will clawing at his soul, and the glassy eyed stare of the serving girl whose life had been forfeit for the attempt - because he still thought he’d been justified in doing so. Because the glory of House Pavus was clearly worth anything to him, and certainly much more than Dorian’s comfort or the integrity of his soul.

Dorian had turned away and basked in the Inquisitor’s outrage on his behalf. He’d left his father at the mercy of Maxwell’s righteous fury, knowing full well that he would not be harmed by it - and that he would also not be changed by it - lest he stayed and did something he would regret.

But during the ride back to Skyhold, with the Inquisitor solemnly at his side, Dorian finally reached enough quiet in his soul to realize he was blisteringly, screamingly angry, despite it all. The well of sadness and disappointment had run dry, and his father’s insolence only made it clear to Dorian that he could never go back. And so on the heels of that rage, came the spite.

If his father thought disgracing fellow altus was the worst he could do, he was sorely mistaken. And if the ancient curse was true, if Dorian's actions carried the weight to destroy his House forever, so be it.

The Iron Bull didn't shy away from the kiss, but he also didn't pull Dorian down into his lap and conquer him, as he'd teased so many times before. He sat by the fire, hands on his knees as Dorian stood between his legs and leaned in to press their lips together.

“What changed?” The Iron Bull asked him, cautious, thoughtful, with the insight of Ben-Hassrath rather than the mindlessness he tried to play up every now and then, to pretend he didn't see all he did.

 _Everything_ , Dorian thought, furious and giddy in turns, drunk on the realization that he was, at last, truly free from the tethers that anchored him back home.

That home was, now and forever, whatever he chose it to be, and not the empty halls he’d left behind in Tevinter.

“Nothing,” he said instead, and sat on the Iron Bull’s good leg, eyes bright. “Don't pretend you don't mean to use me as much as I do. It's all, as you said, in good fun.”

“I'm in if you're in,” the Iron Bull replied, reaching out a hand to touch Dorian's face, fingers sliding down his jaw to hold his neck. “But only if you want to.”

The Iron Bull considered pushing away, but he couldn't deny the eerie feeling that touching Dorian was right. Krem liked to tease him, to call him besotted and laugh at his expense when he tried to deny it. He was Qunari, after all. He liked sex and he liked having sex with people he liked. He liked redheads. He liked to knot rope in patterns and wrap his partners up around his whims.

He also liked Dorian. He liked the pitch of his voice and the edge of his wit. He liked their talks by the fire, so late at night it was early, and the old stories they shared when there was no one else to hear them. He'd felt the pull, ever since he laid eyes on him, instinctual and bone deep, and he'd never been one to doubt those things he knew without knowing why.

“I do.”

And maybe, he thought, as he pulled Dorian down for another kiss, more like the ones Dorian had expected, maybe he'd figure out why he felt that way, once they got it out of their system.

* * *

_Dorian dreams of falling._

_He falls and falls until he lands on a cushion as soft as a cloud, and when the demon comes, slithering up his side and offering terribly wondrous things with his eyes, Dorian laughs._

_“I’ve almost missed you,” he says, eyes bright and conscious, “I’ll have you know.”_

_Then all it takes is the slightest twitch to send the creature away, and Dorian realizes that years of honing his will against the immutable have strengthened it impossibly, when confronted with the vast shapelessness of the Fade._

_Dorian dreams, and for the first time in years, his dreams are his own._

* * *

_(Artwork by Scylla)_

It began with dreamless, peaceful sleep.

The sex was good enough, but it was what came after, that they both secretly became addicted to. The Iron Bull breathed deeply, when he slept, and the sound lulled the cacophony inside Dorian's head, quieted down the ripples in that ocean of memories he categorically refused to think about. And Dorian's weight was comforting in a way the Iron Bull was all too happy he didn't have to explain, soothing the echoes of dreams made of memories he never lived through.

They had sex often, and it was fun and sometimes silly and always hot.

But afterwards, Dorian stayed and the Iron Bull didn't ask him why, and they pretended, with that ease they had, to lie to each other and themselves, that it wasn’t much more intimate to hold each other and hoard the quiet before dawn.

Sometimes they didn't have sex at all, only winding, slithering conversations about nothing in particular that carried in them the weight of everything they were.

“It must be so nice,” Dorian said, one of those nights that they'd drunk in the tavern and ignored Krem's taunting as they headed back upstairs, but once they were alone the momentum had stumbled and been lost for good. “Your Qun,” he clarified, lying against the headboard as he watched with half-lidded eyes as the Iron Bull took off the brace from his leg. “It must be so nice, to have someone tell you what to do, and believe them.”

“It's meant to be,” the Iron Bull said, after a moment, carefully considering his words.

Dorian heard what he did not say, but because Dorian was not Ben-Hassrath, was not trained to take advantage of it, Dorian said nothing and beckoned him to lie next to him instead.

The Iron Bull was Ben-Hassrath, was trained to take advantage of it, to know better than to leave himself open that way, but he went anyway, because deep in that corner of his mind he did not deign to look at, he trusted Dorian far beyond he knew he should.

* * *

_Ben-Hassrath do not dream._

_It is not a metaphor, it is part of the training and a skill in their arsenal. Dreamless sleep is efficient sleep, the kind that digs deep into tired bones and makes them creak less come morning._

_The Iron Bull stopped reporting his dreams long ago, a tiny defiance he justifies to himself with thoughts of Seheron’s blood drenched streets._

_He doesn’t realize how much it means to him, until he’s allowed to wake up with no turmoil of emotions gnawing at his mind._

_Every morning he wakes with Dorian’s breathing tucked against his neck and blissful silence echoing between his ears, the Iron Bull comes closer to admitting the dreams to Dorian. Dorian is not Qunari, and so he wouldn’t judge him based on all the terrible un-Qunari things he has done. Dorian wouldn’t hate him for it, he tells himself._

_But what if? He doesn’t ask, because to ask would be ridiculous._

_But he still waits, another night of nothingness, another dreamless echo of right._

_The Iron Bull does not dream, but he fears his own nightmares, all the same._

* * *

It started with an ugly truth.

“I think we're bound,” Dorian confessed, in the aftermath of a disastrous expedition to the Emerald Graves and a string of heartbreaking discoveries in the old chateau.

“I think you're concussed,” the Iron Bull said, rubbing salve on Dorian's temple and trying to defuse the situation. “Actually.”

“No, I mean. Probably,” Dorian agreed after a moment, leaning into the touch because it felt good – it always felt good, that was the problem – but also trying to hold onto his train of thought. “I shouldn't... I shouldn't have slept with you, without telling you.”

The Iron Bull looked at the mage sprawled against his side, limp and exhausted from a fight with an Arcane Horror they both knew had once been a scared little girl, and felt something akin to gut-wrenching exhaustion. He'd noticed, of course. He could sleep again, after all. He'd tried all manner of herbs and teas and drinks and medicine, and nothing assuaged the nightmares quite like Dorian being near. He trusted the Vint far more than he should, so much so he'd started skipping him on his reports back to his handlers, because he knew what they would say. He knew. He felt it. He might not know the mechanics behind it, but he _knew_.

“Did you do it?” He asked, if only because Dorian seemed stubbornly set on discussing it, rather than let the Iron Bull continue to ignore it.

“Do you think I'd tell you if I had?” Dorian snapped back, eyes bright and dangerous.

The Iron Bull thought of Dorian, everything he was and everything he did and everything he’d grown to know about him: his preference for leather over silks or velvets, his stubborn refusal to own up his weakness regarding Ferelden beer, the corrosive nature of his wit viscerally hiding away any hint of selfless intent, which was often. He thought about the things he liked best about Dorian, which were also the things he should like least, like his penchant for extravagant shows of magical power that redefined the meaning of fear and yet the Iron Bull had grown to know well enough _not_ to fear them. He thought about the steady presence at his left, always covering his flank, in the field or in the fancy halls at Halamshiral.

He looked at Dorian, and everything he’d come to mean to him, and sighed bone deep.

“You have a conscience,” the Iron Bull pointed out, wryness tugging his lips into a smirk. “So, yes.”

“I have a conscience,” Dorian snorted as he closed his eyes and leaned heavily against him, “so I wouldn't do that.” He swallowed hard. “It's blood magic, this kind of thing.”

The Iron Bull went very still, as behind his eyes he saw the red glow and felt the white hot claws of another's will trying to curbstomp his own, before the magic bounced off _something_ , and he was left standing alone in the clearing, once the smoke from the explosion died out.

“Oh,” he said, and realized his fingers were wound possessively on Dorian's hair. “So what do we do?”

“I have a concussion, not the answers to the universe,” Dorian snarked, voice brittle.

The Iron Bull laughed and pulled him close. It made him feel better, but in light of the revelation, not as much as it once had.

__

_(Artwork by Scylla)_

* * *

_“I reckon you must think I’m very silly,” the boy says, grey eyes clear and nebulous at once, and Dorian is struck by three, equally terrible realizations in quick succession._

_Number one being that, yes, actually, beneath the crust of dread wrapped firmly around his soul, he does feel the whole thing is silly, even the He that doesn’t know how this ends and how much he regrets this in the long run. He’s never felt that quite keenly before, never realized it with how much he’d always tried so hard to not deal with it, and that’s how Dorian reaches realization number two._

_That is to say, that his contrary nature is about the worst possible thing to handle the situation, because refusing to engage with it, refusing to let it play out as it’s meant to, it only makes it worse somehow. Dorian notices because he’s too busy being struck by realization number three, to fall into the usual rhythm of arguing and pulling and trying by all means to assert control of a situation that very clearly does not want or need him in control._

_And the third realization Dorian entertains, as he reaches a hand to soothe the untamed hair grown thick and unmanageable with sweat and mud, is this: he’s never noticed before, but the boy with the smile that fades by degrees and the man with the wry smirk that never quite spreads wide enough, and the man with the nimble hands and the boy with the scared tilt to his voice…_

_All of them have grey eyes._

_The realization is terrifying, not only because he’s never noticed before, but because he sees those same eyes every day come morning, when he traces lines of black around them and practices a sneer or two before breakfast._

_There is in fact a fourth realization, though it is more a decree than anything else._

No _, Dorian thinks, vicious and feral, just as he smirks a reply: “Not always, at least.”_

_And then he wakes up in his bed, alone in a room atop one of Skyhold’s many towers, with nothing but books and trinkets for company. Dorian doesn’t stop to ponder why he’s never willed himself awake before - if he even could, before - he wraps himself up in a cloak and storms down the stairs and corridors required to reach the Iron Bull’s room._

_The Iron Bull, mercifully, asks no questions when he sees him, and so Dorian can pretend really hard he owes no explanations to anyone, when he climbs into bed with him._

* * *

It began with a betrayal.

“I would have done the same,” Dorian told him, later, when it was all solemn quiet and no one noticed when he slipped out of his tent and went to sit by the shore. “If it's any consolation.”

It really wasn't, but the Iron Bull didn't say that. They'd chosen to keep going, with the sex and the sleeping and the late night talks, despite Dorian's increasing certainty there was a foreign, possibly magical component to their... thing. Bull chose to ignore it because down that road was madness and never trusting himself ever again. Except now there was madness and never trusting himself ever again, anyway, because he'd made his choice and his choice condemned him, in the eyes of the Qun.

“The nightmares began on my eighth year in Seheron,” the Iron Bull said, eye fixed on the swinging waves in the horizon. “We attacked a base and one of the Vints there, he tried the blood magic bullshit on me. I reckon he figured I was the biggest thing around, so he might as well. It didn't... it didn't work, not the way he meant to. Something happened, then. And then I stopped dreaming about gaatlok smoke and bloodied soil, and started dreaming about a life I'd never had. Places I'd never been. People I'd never met.” He shrugged as Dorian stood by his side. “So I did what the Qun said I should do, I surrendered to the re-educators. Again. I went through the program. Ate and drank and did what they told me to. And then they said, you're good, and sent me out again. They said the dreams would pass, that one day, I would wake up safe in the certainty of the Qun and be a better Qunari for it. The dreams stayed.”

Dorian swayed in place, under the weight of the realization of what the words meant and what was offered with them. Instinctively, he wished to run. To turn around and never look back, away from the Inquisitor and Corypheus and the honest truth lingering in the Iron Bull’s eye.

Dorian swallowed hard and reminded himself he had no reason to run. He knew he doomed his House with his actions, but he’d already decided he did not care one whit about it. He did not allow himself to care about it, not when his father had so callously refused to care about him.

So Dorian walked the three steps required to go sit on the same piece of driftwood as the Iron Bull was, and clutched the rotting wood beneath his hands as he forced himself to speak.

“House Pavus was founded alongside Tevinter, proper, but we did not rise to prominence until the Exalted Age, when Lord Gideon Pavus put a stop to the ridiculous fancy the Magisterium entertained, of marching South and conquering everything in the aftermath of the Fourth Blight.” Dorian smiled thinly. “They tried him for treason eventually, of course, but even then the House remained and our strength only increased in the Steel Age, when the Qunari came. His grandson, Lord Basil Pavus, is revered to this day as one of the great heroes of the First Qunari war. He died young, soon after contact was first made, but he’s credited for seeing the Qunari threat for what it was.” Dorian’s tone was bitter, dark enough it made the Iron Bull hold his tongue on the matter. “My father told me that, as he died, Basil was cursed by the Qunari, that he’d ruined their plans and so they would ruin the one thing that mattered to him, his bloodline. A Qunari blood curse, damning his heirs to love the forbidden and bring ruin to their House as a result. Knowledge of such curse would itself be enough to ruin the House forever, so the secret has been passed down, from Lord to Heir, and measures have been taken to stave it off. Or so my father tells me. His fumbling with blood magic was meant to be such a thing, but all it did was give me dreams and make me leave.”

“Qunari don’t use blood magic,” the Iron Bull said after he was certain Dorian was not going to continue. “Or curse people. Actually, we’re- _they_ ’re very strictly against curses. Demons. That kind of shit.”

It was an inane quip to make, but he wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to say.

“I’m well aware of the fact,” Dorian replied, and leaned over to shove his shoulder against the Iron Bull’s arm. “Nevertheless, we are bound, we have dreams, blood magic seems to somehow have triggered it, and I still can’t sleep unless I have your infernal snoring serenading me.”

The Iron Bull weighed the possibility of a scathing retort to that, and then dismissed it. Dorian needed, more than anything, to discuss things. He needed to give them shape, turn them into statements that made sense and kept his mind from running into circles all the time. And deep down, though now closer to the surface than ever before, the Iron Bull admitted he was much the same. So he swallowed a joke - jokes came easy to him, despite it all, humor had always been the best defense against the horrors he’d witnessed and endured - and shoved his arm against Dorian’s shoulder hard enough to jostle him a little.

“So what do we do about it?” Bull asked, looking down at Dorian and all the careful, precious things he represented. “About the dreams and the bond and the blood magic?” He snorted acidly, because deep down, he couldn’t quite let go of humor entirely. “You know, besides _fuck all_ , in all senses of the word.”

Dorian laughed, soft and bitter and still amused, and then reached out to tug sharply one of the Iron Bull’s ears, pinching it firmly between thumb and index.

“If I knew what we were supposed to be doing, you great big oaf,” Dorian said, truthful and playful at once, “I would be doing it already.”

The Iron Bull leaned into the hand and bumped a horn against the side of Dorian’s head, amused at the offended look that earned him.

“So fuck all it is, then.”

* * *

_Silence._

_Blessed silence._

_But deep down they know, behind it, the echoes are building up. And like all things, this too will give in._

_Eventually._

* * *

It started with the boy.

Halamshiral was a disaster, but the kind that somehow ended up working out in the Inquisition's favor. Dorian was not really surprised, all things considered: it was the Inquisitor's style. The Iron Bull found the whole thing annoying, but given his newly minted status as Tal-Vashoth, he kept most of his comments to himself.

But Halamshiral also meant Morrigan came to Skyhold, and with Morrigan came her son.

“You have a very old soul.”

Dorian put down the book to stare at the shrew eyes squinting at him, and squinted right back.

“You are entirely too young to use that pick up line,” he said, and then smirked when Kieran frowned.

“Souls are not meant to come back,” the boy insisted, “but yours did.”

Dorian stopped smirking.

“Beg your pardon?”

“I’m not the one who should forgive you,” Kieran replied, shrugging as he sat across the board and frowned. “I’m not sure this is something that should be forgiven, if it was actually agreed to in the first place. Regretted, perhaps?”

Dorian considered his next words carefully. He was not the first one to run into Morrigan’s son and find him… strange, after all. But all the gossip in the world would not have prepared him for this. Kieran wasn’t cryptic, as the Inquisitor had clumsily described him. There was a great, terrible thing lurking behind his eyes, wise beyond his years, and knowledgeable in things he had no business being.

In the end, Dorian settled for the truth.

“I have no earthly clue what you’re talking about,” he said, leaning back against his chair as he watched the boy inspect the pieces on the board.

“I know,” Kieran said, pursing his lips. “You remember, but don’t. I think that might be the real problem.” The boy gave Dorian a frightening look, as if he could see right into the depths of his soul in that instant. “This is not what you wanted. Either of you.”

“Excuse me,” Dorian replied, once he felt his hands no longer shaking. “I think I should go.”

“Yes,” Kieran sighed, dropping his head slightly forward. “Unless you’d prefer to discuss this with Mother.”

Dorian didn’t, really.

* * *

_Cursed silence, taunting them with knowledge they’re not sure they want, promising answers they’ve never hoped to get._

_But silence, still._

* * *

It began with a promise.

“My life would be so much easier,” Dorian mused, with that lofty bitterness of his that the Iron Bull could not help but find endearing, “if only I could hate you.”

“Is that how you feel?” He asked, taunting, and basked in the hands tracing lazy patterns all over his skin.

“I don't trust how I feel,” Dorian confessed, closing his eyes and resting his cheek on his chest. “How could I? I don't know how much of this is real and how much of it is... magic.”

The Iron Bull was silent for a long time, pondering the words, and Dorian hated the fact he knew that, because he admired it. He was not the type to be cautious and thoughtful, but he liked the fact the Iron Bull was. He liked the fact he could trust him to mean what he said, because it was a given he'd thought and considered and measured each word thoroughly. He liked a great many things about the Iron Bull, truth be told, and not only the obvious ones.

But deep down he didn't know if he liked them for themselves, or if he liked them because there was a pulse of compulsion caught somewhere under his skin. What could he trust, with his entire sense of self compromised by the insidiousness of their bond? And still, deeper down still, what he truly hated - about himself, about the Iron Bull, about the whole wretched thing - was the certainty that he wanted to trust this, whatever this was, regardless of the cause. Because, and this was the truly fucked up part, as far as Dorian was concerned, it was good.

It was good to have someone to share a tent and a quip every night. It was good to know he had a place, in battle, to know someone’s fighting style well enough to adapt around and compensate, to be trusted to know each individual blind spot and to be praised every time he covered them. It was good to have a place saved in every table, to have someone who ordered his beer for him, so he could go on pretending a little longer, how much he didn’t love it. It was good to know he could ask any question, no matter how brutal or how childish, and know he’d receive an answer suitably pondered and reasoned.

It was good, and it made him wish to give far more than he took, and he knew he was a better person now than he’d ever been, because the Iron Bull deserved no less of him.

It was good, and it was all he’d ever wanted, and now that he knew what it tasted like, to know the well was poisoned - could be poisoned - was too much for him to accept.

“I reckon,” the Iron Bull began, in that slow, measured voice of his that made Dorian stop and listen to every word, “if it’s real, then it’s real. If it feels real, and we treat it like it’s real, it might as well be real.”

“But what if it’s not?” Dorian asked, and then hissed in the back of his throat when a strong arm reached around to pull him down into the overwhelming warmth of the Qunari’s side. “What if we try so hard to make it real, if we go on believing it is, and it turns out it’s not?”

“Good thing about guys like you and me,” the Iron Bull said, clicking his tongue in the prelude of a laugh that didn’t quite make it out of his throat. “We already know we’re good at starting from scratch.”

Dorian buried his face into his neck, growling.

“It’s not really from scratch,” he snarked, trying for bitterness and coming up with something only vaguely tired, “if we know there’s magic involved.”

The Iron Bull sighed viciously.

“So let’s say there is magic to it,” he said, shifting to look down at Dorian, and Dorian’s slightly sullen glare as he was robbed of his favorite resting place. “What does it objectively change? Does it really matter, in the long run?” The Iron Bull sat up, pulling Dorian up with him. “It feels real enough to me.”

“It _could_ be the magic,” Dorian insisted, “it's insidious that way.”

“Fair. So why don't you break it?” The Iron Bull went on, eye narrowed. “Why aren't you trying to get rid of it?” Dorian stared, stunned. The Iron Bull sneered. “See, Dorian, you can't have it both ways. Either you give into it, or you don't. But don't do shit by halves and take it out on me.”

Dorian hissed between his teeth, the sound more the idea of swearing than actual words, more so when one of the Iron Bull’s hands rested easy on his neck, forcing him to keep eye contact.

“I hate magic,” the Iron Bull said, matter-of-fact. “I hate everything about it. I hate demons. I hate the Fade. I hate Spirits. I hate the fact that I have to trust you, when I throw myself and take a hit, because it’s your barrier, not just my endurance, that’ll decide if I stand up again or not. I hate the fact you’re so much faster at killing things than I am. I hate that you’re so reliant on it, you keep forgetting people fight with more than just magic and if I don’t keep a stern eye on you, you’re going to end up with a shiv down your throat before you even know what’s happening. I hate that everything I’ve ever known and taken for granted is suddenly up for debate, when magic is involved. And I absolutely fucking hate that my own feelings and perceptions are questionable, and that this is a conversation we need to fucking have, in the first place, because magic _might_ be involved.” He gave Dorian a slight shake, as if to punctuate his statement. “But here’s the thing, Dorian. This is where I stand: I don’t have many things left to me, since the Storm Coast, but every single one of them I do, I’m gonna defend to the bitter fucking end. You’re one of those things.” Dorian made a wounded noise in the back of his throat, and Bull pulled him closer, so he could press his forehead against his. “ _You’re one of those things_ ,” he insisted, baring his teeth as he felt Dorian’s fingers dig in painfully into his wrists. “And I think you’re worth the bitter fucking end, and if that’s just magic, I’d like to call bullshit on magic.”

“You'll hate me for it,” Dorian whispered. “It's what everyone does. I'm going to ruin you, without meaning to, but you'll hate me for it all the same.”

“Maybe,” The Iron Bull said, eyebrow arched. “Maybe not. Either way, I reckon I get a say in it.” He swallowed hard. “Maybe I think you're worth it.”

“I'm really not,” Dorian laughed, wet and angry, rubbing his face with his hands.

“ _Maybe_.”

* * *

_Pitiful, tenuous silence._

_By the time Corypheus falls, they like to pretend they can’t remember the nightmares anymore._

_They can._

_They do._

_But still, in the dark, there’s only silence all around._

* * *

It started with a peace offering.

“I… _we_ will be leaving soon enough,” Morrigan said, in lieu of a greeting, as she cornered Dorian in his favorite alcove in the library. “I don’t rightly care either way, you understand, but Kieran wouldn’t let me not try, at least.”

Dorian considered saying what first came to mind. Then he remembered that Morrigan had indeed turned into a dragon, at some point, and decided that was perhaps not the wisest thing to do.

“Is this related to your… condition?” He asked instead, with something almost passably like tact.

Morrigan wrinkled her nose at him.

“The only condition you should be worried about is your own,” she replied, without preamble. “But yes, the Well allows me to see more than I could before. And more than that. Kieran sees, but he doesn’t always understand.” She gave him a very pointed look. “I do.”

“I’m not really drunk enough to participate in this conversation, am I?” Dorian despaired.

In a surprising show of empathy, Morrigan snorted.

“Truth be told, I’m not sure there is enough alcohol in Thedas to participate in this conversation.” She tilted her head sideways, and once more Dorian was struck by how birdlike the action was. It reminded him of a raven or some such bird, surveying the terrain before it swooped in. “What I know is this, Pavus. A binding ritual was attempted, and somehow interrupted. I don’t know how or why, but I do know that if you leave this as is, it will destroy you. And him. And a considerable piece of whatever continent you both happen to be in, when the magic finally rebounds.” She gave him a disapproving look, which Dorian didn’t particularly appreciate, given he hadn’t been the one who tried said ritual. At least, he didn’t think so. “I know what type of ritual it was, yes, but I don’t know which one, specifically. You need to be specific, when meddling with souls. It will end poorly otherwise.”

“Is there a scenario in this mess that does not end poorly?” Dorian snarked, clinging to his sharp wit for lack of anything stronger at the moment. “That’s almost unbelievable.”

“You must complete the ritual, or you must reverse it,” Morrigan went on, ignoring his outburst with little more than a roll of her eyes. “There is a way to find out exactly which ritual was used, and what is required to reverse or complete it. But you won’t like what’s required.”

“Name one blighted thing about this whole mess that I actually like!” Dorian exclaimed, patience thinning near snapping point.

Morrigan gave him a long, pondering look before she sighed. She shoved a stack of parchment into his hands and whirled away with a rustle of skirts.

She was gone by the time Dorian had finished reading the first page.

He always regretted that he never properly thanked her for the notes, well after he was done being angry about what the notes entailed.

* * *

_Silence._

_Shivering, quivering silence._

_Expectant silence, prelude of things to come, witness to portents untold._

_And yet, nonetheless, silence._

* * *

It began with a vow.

“We don’t have to,” Dorian said, sitting on the moist grass of early spring. “I don’t remember if I mentioned that before, but we don’t actually have to do this, if you don’t want to.”

The Iron Bull poked at their fire with a sharpened stick and made a thoughtful sound in the back of his throat. It was the secrecy, more than anything, that was irritating him. Well, that and the imminent blood magic. But he found, much to his chagrin, that the blood magic was certainly the lesser of his worries, as he looked over Dorian and evaluated what was at stake. Again.

“You’ve mentioned,” the Iron Bull replied, trying to color his voice with good humor he was not quite capable of at the moment. “It’s okay.”

Dorian threw a pebble at him for that. The small rock bounced off a horn and then fell into the fire. The Iron Bull blinked.

“Nothing about this is okay,” Dorian hissed, grey eyes dark like the sky across the Storm Coast. “Nothing.”

“No commitment yet,” the Iron Bull reminded him, one eyebrow arched. “Remember? Just… just find out the truth.”

“The commitment comes after,” Dorian muttered sullenly, “when we have to decide what to do.”

The Iron Bull was silent for a long while after that, pondering. They hadn’t left the Inquisition, not officially. They were off on an errand, ostensibly on Leliana’s behalf, but even the Iron Bull wasn’t entirely certain how much of that was truth. Nonetheless, the new Divine provided enough of a diversion to buy them enough time to find… a suitable place for the ludicrousness they were both determined to see through. Dorian had admitted he didn’t know what the suitable place was, exactly, only that he’d know when he found it. Oddly, he had no doubt that they would find such a place, and his own certainty about it would be troubling were he not long past the stage where he worried about such things.

“So how about we commit now?” the Iron Bull asked, standing up to full height, towering with ease over the shivering mage clutching at his staff for warmth.

“We can’t commit if we don’t know what was done,” Dorian snapped back, squinting up at him with a determined frown on his brow. “We know it’s blood magic, which is bad enough, but it could be so much worse. I won’t hold you accountable to any vows you decide to make now, just because you’re feeling dramatic and haven’t grasped the consequences of it.”

“Maybe I want you to,” the Iron Bull said, offering a hand, and smiled when Dorian glared darkly at him but did not hesitate to take it. “Maybe I want to tell you now, when every fiber of my being feels it’s true.”

“Bull-”

“In the Hissing Wastes,” the Iron Bull interrupted, holding Dorian’s hands in his own. It was suddenly quite daunting a task to breath and speak at once. He pushed himself through the nerves anyway. “You remember I left, for a while.”

Dorian’s expression darkened, if possible, some more. Oh, he remembered. He remembered waking up alone in a tent in the middle of nowhere, without anyone to give any news on the Iron Bull for nearly a week. He remembered being angry and worried and then angrier, hunting down Ventatori stragglers with enough zeal to make the Inquisitor comment on it. But then the Iron Bull had come back, nonchalant as ever, and with a joke about taking a turn on the wrong dune as the only explanation offered for his absence.

“I remember I made a vow to raise you from the dead if you’d had the nerve to die on me, yes,” Dorian replied, tone not quite as flippant as he’d have wanted it to be. “A vow that still stands to this day, as it is.”

The Iron Bull snorted, amused, though he sobered up quickly.

“Qunari do not marry,” he said, looking down at Dorian with cautious hope. “But Qunari do have… Kadan. Those so dear and close to them, they are they place where you keep your heart.” The Iron Bull frowned as he let go of Dorian’s hands to cradle his face, and smiled when Dorian leaned into the touch on reflex. “I am not Qunari, but still, to me you are Kadan.” He pressed a thumb against Dorian’s lips, as he saw the familiar retort bubbling to the surface. “And I don’t care, if it’s magic or not. I killed a dragon for you, Kadan. I just… I want you to know that. I want you to know that no matter what happens, you will always be Kadan to me.”

Dorian spluttered as Bull pulled the pendants out of the pouch on his belt, where he’d kept them since he’d had them forged.

And then he said, in the smallest voice the Iron Bull had ever heard from him: “But I don’t have anything to give you.”

And he knew, even if the ritual failed, even if it all went to hell, even if it was magic, he knew, right there and there, exactly where he was meant to be.

* * *

_Silence._

_Silence._

_Silence._

* * *

“It’s fairly simple,” Dorian said, sitting on the makeshift altar with a slight grimace. He clutched the pendant hanging from his neck with his left hand, so hard it was a miracle the obsidian wasn’t cutting into his skin. “We bleed, and as the blood flows, we’ll… go back. In stages, as it were, from one life to the last and so on, until the beginning.”

The Iron Bull ran a thumb along the edge of his own pendant and nodded.

“So what happens if we run out of blood before we reach the beginning?”

Dorian licked his lips and offered a shaky smile.

“Well, then we die.”

The Iron Bull nodded slowly.

“Right.”

* * *

_It begins like this: with a pompous Pavus Lording wishing to revisit his family’s lost claims to Seheron and a ballsy Tallis with a knack for puns and bone-deep ironies that’s captured entirely too easily for anyone’s comfort._

_It unfolds like they remember, but with more texture this time: the Qunari’s humor is less flippant and more desolate, and the Pavus Heir thirsts for something far deeper than glory._

_There’s nuance to it, now, depth. They remember full conversations now, context to fill in the gaps of what they know. The storm, for starters, and the subsequent truce as well._

_Suddenly the same arguments they’ve always gone through are entirely different in meaning and intent. Suddenly hatred peels away easily, and the lattice below is as frightening as it’s familiar._

_But the end remains what they know, only it cuts deeper now, when the Tal-Vashoth returns to find the laughter he can no longer live without, and he finds only the cooling bones of another victim of the plague._

* * *

“It wasn’t a whim,” the Iron Bull whispered, resisting the urge to reach out and hold Dorian’s hand. “He knew what he was leaving behind, what turning his back on the Qun meant.”

Dorian smiled, paper thin.

“He would have liked to know that, I suppose.”

* * *

_It starts like this: a weary Lord Pavus hiding from duty in the excess of budding Val Royeaux, and an embittered Salit left adrift in the wake of the Llomeryn Accords, trying to survive._

_It’s much more venomous now, than it was before: the taunts and the uncertainty, and the fact it went both ways, where before they thought the other knew for certain where they stood._

_It’s brief and passionate and terrible, like all things born of fear of the unknown. The Salit wants for nothing but the safety of his agents, trapped in pockets of lies that will not last for long now that the war has ceased. Lord Pavus wants the courage to repudiate his wife and not feel like he’s failed even when it is his right to do so._

_It is no longer a surprise, how it ends: the truth escapes the Salit’s control, and Lord Pavus retaliates with magic uncontested. When the Salit’s wards come find their missing leader, they find Lord Pavus instead. They’re not kind, but they are just, and so is Lord Pavus’ will, when it arrives to Minrathous a few months after._

* * *

“You know, I’m not mad anymore,” Dorian said, staring at the spiral of blood whirling between them with a wry smile, “about you admitting to being a spy.”

The Iron Bull licked his lips and tried - and failed - to smile back properly.

“Ex-spy,” he replied, dropping his gaze to the blood as well, “got fired, if you recall.”

“Right,” Dorian said, and felt nothing like. “Of course.”

* * *

_It begins in the trenches of a war that raged and lulled like the swinging waves: with a foolish Altus seeking glory and a seasoned Arvaarad that should have known better._

_It is bitter and brittle and fleeting. It almost ends on its own, twisted as it was, coiled on disdain and exhaustion and shame, but it was not meant to be._

_It ends the morning Lord Pavus does not wake, and the Arvaarad loses himself to grief, and the whole of Seheron trembles in the altar of his rage._

* * *

“You never really answered,” Dorian pointed out, breathing hard through clenched teeth, the echo of thread still pulling at his lips. “When I asked you if you’d rather see me bound.”

The Iron Bull was quiet for a very long moment, before he realized he could not offer anything but the truth, vicious as it was.

“When we first met, in Redcliffe,” he replied, nodding slowly. “Yes, I thought you needed to be bound and collared and locked up very, very far away from the Inquisition.”

Dorian licked at the scars he did not have, and swallowed hard.

“And now?”

The Iron Bull dipped his head, deeper this time.

“Now I know better, Kadan,” he said, and the smile actually reached the vicinity of his eyes. “I only want you bound _sometimes_.”

Dorian laughed. It was a very ugly laugh.

“Progress, at least.”

* * *

_It starts with deja vu: another storm, another set of warriors with profound beliefs about the war._

_Only, it doesn’t get that far._

_Only, it doesn’t get much chance to_ be _, cut short by extremely zealous Pavus forces and their dreadful sense of timing._

_It ends in a rescue no one ordered or needed, and one dead Qunari whose riddle Lord Pavus will ponder over for weeks, before he too dies a sudden, pointless death that really does beckon an explanation._

* * *

“Kadan,” the Iron Bull said, voice hoarse. “The answer was Kadan.”

Dorian bowed his head. It gave the impression that he would be burying his face into his hands, if he could.

“Of course it was.”

The blood was nearly dry, by the time the echoes solidified.

* * *

_It begins in Tevinter, the old and decadent slumbering beast that fell to the Qunari assault._

_It starts with Lord Pavus, proud and clever and vicious, sent to investigate the sightings of giants in the far North._

_It begins with Kithshok, emissary of the invasion, first foothold of the Qun into foreign lands._

_It starts with a friendship built on wit and taunting, and a diplomatic disaster that will spiral the world into war for centuries to come._

_It begins with kindness, and something shapeless and all consuming, something greater than all the vows they have already made, and all the promises they will one day regret._

_It starts in the ruins of the Pavus estate, on the run from everyone and everything, at the end of a road they knew would only lead to death._

* * *

“Dorian-”

Dorian bared his teeth.

“I can hold on if you can.”

* * *

_“What if we could be together, again, after this is over?” Lord Pavus asks his lover, the warrior poet who forsook the Qun for him. “Not in this life, but in the next?”_

_“What if I never find you?” Kithshok asks back, wise and cunning and always, always ready for the other shoe to drop._

_“There is a way,” Lord Pavus tells him, tenderly holding the hands that have killed so many, for his sake. “You will not like it. But we will find each other. We will be together.”_

_Kithshok had been a good Qunari, before Lord Pavus poisoned his soul with love. Kithshok knows instinctively that whatever his lover is proposing, the Qun would not approve of. But by this point, after battles and betrayals and despair, Kithshok has done far too many things the Qun disapproves of, to really keep count._

_“What do I do?” He asks, moved despite it all, by the fierce devotion in Lord Pavus' eyes._

_“You need to trust me,” Lord Pavus whispers, staff gleaming with the wondrously terrible power the Qun abhors above all else. He swallows hard. “And you need to forgive me.”_

* * *

“Dorian!”

Dorian realized, all of a sudden, that he had considerably less blood to offer to the ritual, than Bull did.

He also realized he did not care.

“Just a bit more,” he hissed, determined to reach the truth, “we’re nearly there.”

* * *

_It starts with Kithshok's eyes gone cloudy as the blood spills on the marble floor, and Lord Pavus following too early, too soon, Lady Pavus' dagger deep in his back and a half finished spell snagged on his soul._

_“You will_ not _ruin my children’s legacy,_ my _legacy.”_

_It ends in solemn, vicious silence and a scream that echoes into nothing, deep within the void._

* * *

Dorian awoke in the Iron Bull’s arms, his own forearms bandaged and not, despite his sincerest conviction, dead from blood loss.

“Bull,” he began, and then stopped, fingers digging into the thick arm wrapped around his side.

The Iron Bull sighed, body heaving into it.

“I know,” he said.

And deep down, they both did. What needed to be done and what would actually get done. When. Why. How.

“Call me Kadan again,” Dorian whispered, closing his eyes and basking in the warmth.

The Iron Bull laughed, breathless with despair.

“Kadan.”

Dorian licked his lips.

“Amatus,” he replied, folding deeper into the embrace. “It’s what he called him in his head, but he was always too afraid to say. Every time. Every life.” He offered a small, terrified laugh. “It means, strictly speaking, beloved. But it is more than that. A vow, a promise of forever.”

The Iron Bull buried a smile against the crown of Dorian’s head.

“We’re on our third age, by my count, Kadan.”

Dorian closed his eyes, pretending to delay the inevitable.

“Yes, well,” he said, trying and failing to conjure the usual flippancy of his tone, “forever is a tad longer than that, Amatus.”

* * *

_Not silence, but peace._

_As if with knowledge came forgiveness, though they do know better than that._

_They’ve had enough of beginnings, alas._

_All that is left, is to choose the proper end._

_And in that, at least, they do agree._

* * *


End file.
